


Touch

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Rumbelle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:09:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Touch repels him. He tries to convince himself that she does too, but he's never been a very good liar. Gradual Belle/Gold. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> To tell the truth, this whole story happened because I was trying to write a fic where everyone's favorite pirate rescues Belle from certain doom. I tried really hard. But then it turned into a Rumbelle anyway.
> 
> So enjoy it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To tell the truth, this whole story happened because I was trying to write a fic where everyone's favorite pirate rescues Belle from certain doom. I tried really hard. But then it turned into a Rumbelle anyway.
> 
> About the archive warning - I wouldn't have included it if I didn't think it important. It's only for the first scene, and while it isn't incredibly graphic, I promise ya won't miss much if you choose to skip over it. Tis just the lead-in for a lil Rumbelle sleepover, really.

 

* * *

The way he was touching her made him sick. It wasn't the way a drunk man touched a woman; it was the way a drunk man touched a possession. His hands were roaming places she obviously didn't want them to, and she kept trying to lull him with promises of later, once they got home, but he'd stopped listening a long time ago.

He'd wrestled her shirt half-off at this point. She was fighting tooth and nail not to lose her calm - maybe she knew him. Maybe she was dating him. She got him to let go of her and her shirt soon enough, and they starting walking down the street once more, as though the whole thing had never happened. And maybe he'd just imagined it.

He was going to walk the other direction. He was going to go home to make dinner for his son and then fall asleep watching bad Lifetime movies. He was going to do the same thing he did every night of his life; but he abandoned all notions of normalcy as soon as he heard the way she screamed.

It wasn't the way a drunk woman screamed in pleasure; it was the way a drunk woman screamed in fear. All the excuses he could think of not to go darted through his mind. He wasn't much of a fighter. Couldn't do much fighting even if he wanted to, with a bum leg and a limp to match. And he didn't even have a weapon.

Her scream rang through the night again. It jarred him all the way down to his bones, crowded his mind with the thought:  _Do something, do something._

He walked towards the sound of her screams at an even pace - if he walked too fast, they'd go after him. It sounded like they'd gone into an alley - every noise echoed.

He heard the harsh sound of fabric ripping, tearing. Another scream that bordered on a sob.  _Where is she, where is she?_

He ran into the darkness blindly, forgetting about being heard or being found. This girl was obviously in trouble, and she needed help. It was just a shame that he was the only help she would get.

"Hello?" He called out. Rainwater running down a gutter was his only answer. There was no other noise; even the birds had stopped calling to each other at this hour.

It was too still. Too quiet. Someone was behind him. Something was going to happen. He waited, walking on like he was still oblivious. When he saw a fist flying towards him in his peripheral vision, he held his palm out and open to absorb the force. Maybe he didn't know much about fighting, but he was good with logic. He could use it against them.

There were three of them. The boyfriend and two others. One was standing behind him, another lingered at the shadowy end of the alley, and the last was backing the girl against a wall.

If his cane had an ounce of magic left in its gold-tipped snake's head, he would've used it to burn these three into tiny husks of their former selves and then rip their hearts out of their chests.

"It looks like someone wanted to watch," Came the low, jeering sound of the third one's voice. Disgusting. He was the one leaning over the girl, leering at her like a hungry animal.  _Disgusting._

"Well, boys, we'd better give him a show." He called out to his friends in the dark. They boxed him in, grabbing him by the arms so he couldn't run.

He saw his opening when the leader was busy trying to figure out how to unbutton the girl's shirt.

He took it as the perfect opportunity to kick the man's friends in the knees and then right between the eyes. Both of them crumpled to the ground within moments, writhing in pain.

He took the liberty of knocking the boyfriend out first before he looked the girl over. If he'd looked at her first, he would've been tempted to punch him into next week.

The girl was shaking, and definitely on edge, but it seemed like the men hadn't gotten much further than getting a good scare out of her. She looked at him with the wide eyes of a frightened animal.

"I won't ask if you're alright. I suppose it would be rather difficult to be even remotely "okay" after what they tried to do to you. But if there's anywhere you'd like to go, I could see to it that you got there safely. Is that what you want, dearie?"

She shook her head no.

"Would you like to call someone, then?" He made a move to fish his phone out of his pocket but froze when he saw the color drain from her face. She probably thought he was reaching for a weapon. 

Some of the tension in her shoulders faded when he drew his hand out of his pocket. He kneeled on the ground in front of her and asked his question again, making sure his eyes didn't stray any lower than her own. It seemed that her boyfriend's gang had really done a number on her shirt, and he felt that it would be best if he didn't look.

"I could take you to the police station, then. You wouldn't have to tell them what transpired here if you didn't want to. They could find you a place to stay for the night, or make sure you got home safely. Would that be a better option?"

Again, the girl she shook her head. "I'm a bit too cold to think right now."

Her lips were blue and she was shaking in her heels; she must've been freezing, and the aftershock of what she'd just been through - the things he'd just asked her - probably weren't helping any. He offered a gloved hand to help her up as he himself stood. She used his hand as an anchor to pull herself up, but dropped it as soon as she could. He didn't miss the wary look in her eyes when she didn't make a move to step away from the wall.

"It's okay. I won't hurt you." He shrugged off his jacket and held it out to her as a peace offering.

"Okay." He wasn't sure if the stutter in her voice was from the adrenaline wearing off or the cold biting her skin when she asked, "C-could you put it on me?"

She held up her hands to show that they were red and raw from the wind. He nodded and asked her to hold out her arms so he could drape it across her shoulders.  _So I can't touch you,_  he added mentally. She did as he asked without complaint, and he thought she had an accent he couldn't place when he asked if she could button it up, too. He took a deep breath and did that as well, all the while swearing that he was going to go to the ninth circle of hell for unsuccessfully trying not to look at her.

"I can walk you back to the bar if you don't want to go back there alone. Maybe you could think of someone to call while we walked."

"Even if I did, one of the bartenders would probably kick us out before anyone came to get me," she said as the wind stirred her hair off her shoulders.

"Are you're sure? I was hoping you could find someone to take you to their house for the rest of the-" He trailed off when he realized he was that someone.

"You want to come stay with me?" He asked, incredulous.

She nodded. "I do."

"I don't think you know just what you're asking. You don't want to stay with me." He gave her a smile that'd left children running away from him on more occasions than he could count.

"Please."

The single word had enough power to break his resolve.

Gold lead them back to the bar and the better side of town without another word. He really thought the line would've worked on her - it'd done wonders for him before. He was almost disappointed he hadn't gotten a chance to tell her the line about all the skeletons he kept in his closet (Halloween decorations he'd fashoned himself, but she didn't need to know that). He figured he could always tell her a little later if things went as horribly as he thought they would. He unlocked his car as soon as they got close enough to where it was parked; he was hoping he could jump in and speed away like in the movies, but the movie life, unfortunately, didn't seem like it was for him.

The girl ducked into the passenger seat the moment he pressed the unlock button, smiling weakly at him when he asked if she was serious.

"What am I supposed to tell my son?" He asked the air.

"How old is he?" She answered him with a question of her own as she clicked on her seatbelt. He thought her eyes might have been blue, but her smudged makeup and glassy expression made it hard to tell.

"Thirteen."

"Mom in the picture?"

"Once," he offered.

"And you're sure this is okay? It won't be too weird for him?"

He nodded and started the car, pulling out of the space and driving towards home. He supposed he could've just kicked her out of the car and made her walk - but she didn't have a place to go and he didn't have the heart to leave her on the street. Not really, anyway.

When they pulled into his driveway, he shut the car off and said, "I don't want you to get the wrong idea, here. This is only temporary."

She nodded. "Okay."

"Okay."

They got out of the car and he lead her to the front door, unlocking it quickly so they could get out of the cold. She shut the door to his bathroom the moment she found it, asking if could she have some clothes to put on through the grain of the door. He sighed and disappeared down the hall to look for something decent. He wasn't sure what she usually wore to bed but he had a feeling it wasn't a man's t-shirt. He scrounged around for some of Milah's old things and picked a few at random - he hoped nothing was too distasteful.

He waited until the water was running for a good ten minutes before he opened the door a crack to put the pile of clothes on the sink. The room was filled with steam, but not enough that he couldn't make out the curves of her figure from behind the shower curtain. He didn't look long; he'd already cursed himself to the deepest circle of hell, there was no need to curse himself even deeper than that.

He could hear her singing over the sound of the shower squeaking. She wasn't very confident, or even very musical, but he liked it nevertheless. He thought it was a touch closer to the real version of her, or at the least the less-frightened, more-sober version. He closed the door behind him and walked back out towards the living room.

Once he settled back onto the couch he wondered what in the world he had just done and how he would ever make up for it.

She walked out of the bathroom and down the hall a few minutes later, wet hair dripping all over his carpet. He winced.

"Sorry," She said barely above a whisper. He wondered if she was always this quiet, or if the night's events had stolen her voice. He settled on the latter, wanting to imagine the best. When she walked towards the lights in the living room, he realized she was much older than he'd originally thought - it wasn't a teenager girl who stood before him, but a woman. A very quiet, tone-deaf woman he told himself he would only be happy to be rid of in the morning.

When she plopped down next to him on the couch, curling her knees up to her chest, he was relieved he'd made his son some spaghetti and sent him to sleep well before she'd gotten out of the shower. The shirt she'd borrowed was riding up no matter what way she sat, and if Bae was awake he would've told her so.

"I find it hard to believe you couldn't think of anyone to come get you."

Her eyes drifted over to the bookcase on the far wall of the room; he thought her make a low noise in her throat when her gaze moved across all the titles he'd been collecting over the years. "And I find it hard to believe you've read every book on that shelf."

"I don't think you want to get into this argument with me, dearie," He gave her a smile that resembled the mouth of a shark when he said, "I'm not in the business of opening my home to strangers. So if you've truly resigned yourself to stay here, I think it's only fair that you're allowed to ask any questions after you've answer some of mine. Do we have a deal?"

"Deal."

"So, first off." His smile faded from his lips as though it'd never been there at all. "Should I be worried about unwanted visitors coming to my door at ungoldly hours of the morning, demanding that I hand you over to the only deputy in town?"

"I think Emma's technically the sheriff, now. When a higher-up dies, it's common to pass their title down to whoever falls under them in power."

"What Miss Swan calls herself as she drives around in her dearly-departed boyfriend's cruiser is no business of mine," He said over the drum of the rain that'd started falling. "But getting back to our game of twenty questions: do you know the men who assaulted you?"

"Yes. But only one." Something in her voice told him that it would be wise not to ask exactly which one it was; he supposed that names could wait until later.

"Would you be willing to press charges?" The lawyer in him was howling with laughter at the very idea.

"Maybe," She said after a minute, biting her lip like she was toying with the idea herself.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" 

Her eyebrows shot up and she turned to look him full in the face. "What?"

He cracked a smile. "Don't tell me you're surprised by the question. I'm not asking because I want to know for my own benefit, dearie; I'm asking from a legal standpoint."

"I'll have to think about it," She said, shifting on the couch so she was facing him. "Things are hard enough at home. There are..." She twirled the ends of her hair around her fingers like she was nervous. "Let's just say there are things going on there that I'd rather not talk about right now." She kept twirling the ends of her hair even as her eyes grew dark. "So I don't want to go home just yet, y'know?"

"No. I don't know." He added, "I went back and forth between foster homes" to make up for any unkindness. She continued to fidget on the couch even when she found something to watch on TV. He hadn't noticed when she'd grabbed the remote, or even when she'd moved to turn the TV on. He'd been all too-aborbed by her face. She'd washed away the night's makeup when she'd taken her shower; her eyes were so blue, he found himself unable to look away, even to glance over her curls as they fell in her face, or to gaze at her lips as they curled up into a noiseless laugh over whatever show she was engrossed in.

"What's your name?"

"Belle." She said without looking up, and he was relived whatever sitcom she was watching held her attention so fully. It left him free to stare for as long as he liked, even though he knew he shouldn't have been staring at all.

"What about you? I have to call you something." She turned to look at him just as he turned his gaze towards the TV. He thought that she might've been watching _Beauty and the Beast_ ; he almost laughed at the sheer irony of it. Of course her name would've been Belle; and of course she would've chosen to stay with such a monster of a man.

"It's best to just call me Gold," He couldn't say  _Andrew_ for the sake of his sanity.

"Well then thank you, Gold," She leaned over to kiss his cheek and he resisted the violent urge to shove her away from him.

He allowed himself to turn to look at her once she'd pulled away. "For what?"

He thought she blushed under his gaze, and the stutter was back in her voice when she back, "For-for letting me stay here, and all. I think I'm going to go to sleep if that's okay."

He started to tell her that the guest room was the first door on the left, but she'd already wandered down the hall and said that she was just going to sleep in his room if that was okay. It most certainly was not okay that a strange woman was sleeping in his room, in his bed. It wasn't okay that she was taking advantage of his things or his hospitality. And it really, really wasn't okay that she was working her way into his thoughts.

The door to his room closed with a note of finality when he hadn't made a move to protest. Gold knew he couldn't sleep there himself; not with her there. It was several different types of illegal in the state of Maine alone, and a dozen more in his conscience.

He pressed his palms into his eyes until all he saw was red, then sighed and pushed himself off the couch to go scavenge for an extra blanket. He found one in the hall closet and made his way back to the couch. As he spread it out around him, he could only think  _what have I done? what_   _have I done?_

He shut off the living room light and tried to ward off the nightmares long enough to go to sleep. He decided he'd let her stay until morning. He could handle a morning, couldn't he?


End file.
